And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 03:15 PM 12/18/98 -0500, you wrote: >A Sewage Plant Tourists Love >Arcata's low-tech treatment facility also a wildlife refuge >Mary Curtius >Friday, December 18, 1998 >�1998 San Francisco Chronicle > >URL: >http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/1 >2/18/MN78235.DTL > > > > > >Few dream of doing great things with sewage. But fortunately for this >college town, two men who saw the potential in human waste teach here at >Humboldt State. > >Together, Robert Gearheart and George Allen turned a local garbage dump >into a low-tech treatment plant, wildlife refuge and salmon-spawning >spot. > >In the process, they won some respect for a town on California's far >northern coast that was used to being derided by its neighbors for its >tree-hugging, environment-loving policies. > >``Both George and I are from the old school,'' said the 60-year- old >Gearheart, a burly sanitation engineer who now travels the world as a >wetlands consultant. ``We like things done relatively simply.'' > >In the 20 years since Gearheart and fisheries expert Allen designed the >Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, hundreds of towns, in the United >States and abroad, have copied Arcata's system for treating sewage. In >California alone, Davis, with 40,000 residents, is constructing its own >wetlands-and-sewage system, and so is Pacifica, just south of San >Francisco. Phoenix is considering one. > >But the marsh holds appeal for more than sanitation engineers; it has >made Arcata a tourist destination. Every year, 150,000 people flock to >this town of 17,000 to visit the 154-acre refuge. > >Birders and eco-tourists come to observe the thousands of migrating >birds that rest and feed here in the spring and fall. The Audubon >Society gives weekend walking tours. Delegations of engineers and >municipal politicians from around the world come to copy the system for >their own towns. > >The tourists often don't realize that the sanctuary's paths lead them >through part of Arcata's sewage treatment plant. The tanks that collect >the sewage of Arcata's 17,000 residents and separate solids from water >are tucked out of sight. There is no smell of raw sewage on the series >of ponds the waste water flows through before it is discharged into >Humboldt Bay. > >``We've shown that human waste is not just something to be gotten rid >of,'' Gearheart said. > >With its meandering trails, wild blackberry bushes, picnic areas and >fishing holes, the marsh also is a favorite haunt for locals, who jog >and stroll here year-round. > >Just minutes from downtown Arcata, herons, snowy egrets, pelicans and >clapper rails hunt the marsh's chain of ponds. Swallows dart through the >air, chasing mosquitoes. Clumps of bulrushes, waving in the breeze, >shelter nests. > >Few visitors are aware that the plants are drawing bacteria and other >toxins out of the ponds in which they grow. Filter-feeding organisms in >the marsh water eat the microbes that attach to the plants' roots and >stems. The ponds, essentially, serve as a giant filtration system, >cleansing the water before it goes into the bay. The system needs >neither the giant infrastructure nor heavy chemical treatment used to >remove bacteria in more traditional sewage plants. > >But it does need two things many large urban communities don't have -- a >lot of space to build marshes big enough to process the sewage, and the >absence of heavy metals produced by industry, because a marsh cannot >process them. Arcata has no heavy industry. > >The marsh's success has made Arcatans feel good about themselves. The >only town in America governed by the Green Party, Arcata often finds >itself the butt of jokes from nearby towns like Eureka and McKinleyville >for being a bastion of hippiedom, a place passionately committed to >recycling, vegetarian restaurants and natural- fiber clothing boutiques. > > >``You have got to take risks now and then,'' said Mark Andre, Arcata's >deputy director of Environmental Services. ``Sometimes, you fall on your >face and other times, you look good.'' > >And the project has saved money. Its $5.3 million price tag was less >than half of what would have been Arcata's proposed share of a high-tech >regional treatment plan. Residents' sewage bills in Arcata are the >lowest in the county. > >Back in 1977, when Arcata proposed building the marsh, the plan was >opposed by the state Water Resources Control Board and neighboring >towns. No American town had ever proposed treating its sewage in a >marsh. The board argued that Arcata would never meet federal clean water >standards unless it treated sewage with chemicals. > >At the time, towns ringing Humboldt Bay -- including Arcata -- had >antiquated sewage systems that were dumping raw sewage into the bay. > >The largest estuary between San Francisco Bay and the Columbia River, >Humboldt Bay is particularly sensitive to water pollution because >two-thirds of the state's Pacific oysters grow in beds on its north >side, where Arcata lies. For years, contamination from the region's >sewage treatment plants regularly forced shutdowns of the oyster beds. > >The system Gearheart designed -- opened in 1985 -- is indeed a simple >one. > >Sewage flows into the collection area, where wastewater is separated >from sludge. The sludge is kept in huge tanks, where it is ``digested'' >for a month before being drained into drying trays. The dried sludge >then is broken up and mixed with plants harvested from the marsh and >wood chips in a compost pile. High temperatures in the pile kill off >harmful bacteria. Within a month, the compost is ready to spread across >the town's soccer fields, its forest and on flower beds. > >The water, meanwhile, sits in an oxidation pond, where sunlight kills >most microbes. It is chlorinated, then allowed to flow into a series of >three marsh ponds. There, it mixes with the brackish water of the bay. >Two weeks to a month after it first enters the plant, the water is >rechlorinated, then dechlorinated and discharged into Humboldt Bay. > >Strolling through the marsh on a fall day with Allen, 75, now retired, >it is hard to imagine that two decades ago, the birth of this peaceful >place was preceded by battles so bitter they are known in Humboldt >County as ``the Wastewater Wars.'' > >``There has been a remarkable improvement in the water quality of the >bay,'' since Arcata's plant began functioning, said William Rodriguez, >an engineer with the state water control board and who originally >opposed the Arcata plan. ``Rarely do they have an impact on the oyster >beds anymore. I think their plant is doing a very good job.'' > >Allen and Gearheart say the marsh battle was really about common sense, >about using what is at hand and getting the most out of resources. > >Both men are slightly embarrassed by the local-hero status they have as >founders of the marsh. > >One of the sanitation ponds has been named in Allen's honor. Another has >been named for Gearheart. > >``Sort of makes me feel I have an obligation to be cremated and have my >ashes scattered across it,'' Gearheart said with a laugh. > > > >�1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A25 > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment ...http://www.law.cornel.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
